Colorado gun background checks still surging; called unprecedented

More than 8,800 firearm background checks have been submitted to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation in the past week.

As of Sunday morning, about 10,000 background checks were in the bureau's queue, waiting to be processed, said Susan Medina, spokeswoman for the CBI.

About 3,000 checks are being submitted a day — "these are unprecedented numbers," Medina said.

The wait time for a background check was at 68 hours Saturday.

The process, required to purchase a gun, usually takes minutes, Medina said.

Sunday afternoon, the CBI was processing background checks from Thursday, according to the CBI Twitter page.

On Dec. 15, there were 573 background checks for firearm purchases in the CBI queue, Medina said. Wait times were just over 15 minutes.

Background checks are cross-referenced through federal and local law-enforcement databases.

The flood of submittals has prompted that department to expand hours of operation from 6 a.m. to midnight, Medina said.

"The goal every day is to get it down to a zero balance," she said. "They processed 1,600 Saturday."

The background checks began pouring in Dec. 15, one day after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut and on the heels of politicians calling for bans on certain weapons and extended gun magazines.

The bureau is closed only on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Staff, including those from other departments, will be working to process as many checks as possible, Medina said.

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In 2012 through November, there were 34,117 more background checks submitted to the CBI for processing than in all of 2011 — a 14 percent increase, according to CBI data.

Over the past five years, the number of checks has climbed 58 percent because of safety concerns for some and worries for others that the Obama administration might impose gun controls, according to political- and social-science experts.